States asked to shape foreign trade policies

States also told to speed up work on infra such manufacturing zones, industrial parks and economic corridors

With a view to bettering export performance, the government on Wednesday asked states to prepare  their own foreign trade policy (FTP) enumerating their export strategy.

During a meeting between Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia and senior officials from various state governments, the Centre also asked them to expedite the work on infrastructure development such as manufacturing zones, industrial parks and economic corridors.

 

“Several issues were discussed today. We have asked the state government officials to increase the pace of modernising export infrastructure like roads, ports and power …  We have also urged them to appoint export commissioners and prepare their own trade policy,” said a senior official.

In an effort to involve the states in the country’s exporting activity, the ministry of commerce and industry has also formed a trade facilitation council under the chairmanship of Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

 

From now on, states would also be able to make their own export performance assessment by accessing the data through the portal of Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCI&S).

The government is aiming at making this data available to the state governments on a real-time basis.

Issues related to quick refund of local taxes and relaxing the regulatory environment was also discussed, officials said.

 

Even as the government took efforts to include the states in boosting exports, shipments in June indicated 15.82 per cent contraction at $22.28 billion. This is for the seventh month in a row that exports have witnessed a decline.

Exports have been falling since December 2014. The FTP 2015-2020 had set a target of achieving exports worth $900 billion by 2020. However, exporters have been upset with the fact that under the new FTP, the rate of rewards were reduced to two to five per cent from two to seven per cent for merchandise exports.